Posts Tagged ‘jerra williams’

As promised we’ll be highlighting all the teen performers that took the Battle stage in front of the Fairmount St. Library last Wednesday. First up we’ll be showcasing the solo artists. The past 3 years solo artists were not invited to enter the Battle of the Bands, so we thought we’d try something different this year. Such a decision certainly made for a more interesting line up and added great artistic value to the evening. As it turns out, solo artist Emily Majetic even ended up winning this year’s competition! Pretty impressive! Three teen judges and two adult judges, who also happened to be members of the U.S. Navy Rock Band, scored this year’s winners and Emily’s performance came out on top.

Emily lives in Moline and has loved music all of her life. Although she has only been playing shows for a couple of years, she started singing when she was just 4 1/2 years old. Emily has great stage presence and engages well with her audience. Some of her lyrics are a bit dark, yet they mesh nicely with her lovely singing voice and sweet acoustic guitar tones. When asked what she likes most about making music she said she loves everything about music, especially being in front of a crowd. It was also cool to hear that, besides music, Emily is a huge fan of art–especially painting and sculpture. We’re so glad she signed up this year and certainly wish her well in all of her artistic endeavors. Another huge congrats to our 1st place winner who received $100 and the chance to play two more paid gigs over the summer. Way to go, Emily! Be sure to check out her Myspace page, too.

Our second featured solo artist, Jerra Williams, is from Rock Island. Jerra was definitely our most unique performer and there’s a lot to be said for that. I knew right away, before the Battle had even begun, when I asked Jerra what sort of music he liked and his response was contemporary jazz, R&B, and some pop that we would be in for a treat performance-wise. Jerra’s instrumental set consisted of him on the keyboards tapping out a couple original tunes and even a version of Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. Cool. When asked to describe his sound he said that it’s kinda serious and though it may sound serious he’s really just a jokester. We’d love to see where Jerra’s musical path takes him and we couldn’t be happier to have had him play as a solo artist at the 4th Annual Battle of the Bands! It was also a true pleasure to see how proud all of Jerra’s family was of him and his performance. Nice work, Jerra!